Saturday, March 14, 2015

Week 60 - Ottavalo - Feb 23, 2015 (transfer)

And the verdict has been made! Hermana Espinoza is dead and I have been moved to Ottavalo. OK she`s not really dead she just finished the misión.

"Let us cheerfully do all things that lie in our power; and then may we stand still, with the utmost assurance, to see the salvation of God, and for his arm to be revealed." D&C 123:17

Now that we have changes I feel kind of bittersweet, but I also know that we have left a legado in Bella Aurora. I am excited to get to work in Ottavalo with Hermana Gonzalez. We are going to see miracles. We just have to give everything to the Lord and trust in him. I feel like this week I experienced a grand change of heart. It started last wednesday. We had a very spiritual weekly planning sesión even though we both knew that we wouldn`t be together for the following week. We left the house with a feeling that if we just submit to the will of God, He would lead us to where He wanted us to be, but we had to let go of our own selfish desires. We accepted that he would guide us and in order to feel the spirit to be guided we held prayers in our hearts. We found many new investigators this past week, but one, specifically I want to talk about.

Maria Guaman was a contact from a couple weeks back, who we kept on seeing on the bus. We were able to make a concrete appointment with her for saturday night. When we arrived at her house the spirit was tangible. She told us how she knew she needed to learn more and she wanted to change her priorities from wordly things to godly things. That impacted me. What if all our investigators were like that? If we all just wanted to do what God wants instead of what we want? Thats they key of the góspel and the first great commandment: Love God with all our heart might mind and strentgh. We continued to teach and testify of the restauration and in the end she accepted to be baptized. When we asked her why, she said, "Hermana´s you´ve taught me a lot and I know I still have much to learn, but if there´s one thing I have felt tonight that I never before have felt is that now I know with surety that God loves me." We asked her to offer the prayer and she willingly bowed her head to talk with God for the first time, a miracle in and of itself. When she finished tears filled her eyes and she told us that God sent us to guide her. The next day she came to church and loved it. As Hermana Espinoza and I talked walking home that night we rejoiced in how Maria truly understood the purpose of Lesson 1, she felt that God loved her. Thats why we teach Lesson 1 the restoration, so others can feel of God`s love and understand that his church is once again on the earth. I have felt more of the love of my father this week than ever before and it is because I have forgotten myself and gone to work.

We also found a very sweet family, the Familia Echesi, also the family Herrera, and the Family Lema. All three are genuinely curious and have true desires to change the course of their lives in order to experience peace and joy in their families. The cool part is we found two of these families just walking around looking for peole who needed help, be it carrying huge bags of choclo, or washing clothes by hand. We rejoice in finding as we serve and serving as we find. People truly feel the pure love of Christ as we serve. As we have strived to follow God`s will with mind and heart this week we have been able to find more serving opportunites, which is exactly what Christ did when He was on the earth. He loved. He served. He taught. We can do the same be us members or missionaries.

I love to serve the Lord. Its true that I am sad to leave Bella Aurora but I know the Lord has a plan for me here in Ottavalo. Its a beautiful place and as we continue to put God first, to trust and ask him for help before drawing to quick conclusions I know we will see fruit, be it in the members themselves, investigators, less actives, we will change the world.